


Call Me Friend But Keep Me Closer

by Ukthxbye



Series: I loved you at the wrong time [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Awesome Molly Hooper, F/M, Mind Palace, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining, Post-Episode: s04e02 The Lying Detective, Pre-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Pre-Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, Sherlock Being Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Soul-Searching, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 20:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17433272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ukthxbye/pseuds/Ukthxbye
Summary: Sherlock goes into his mind to study and muse over Molly's words to him in the hospital.





	Call Me Friend But Keep Me Closer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Writingwife83](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writingwife83/gifts).



_It's just so much to carry, that’s all._

 

The words rang in his head, echoing from her room, waltzing into his ears. He stood at the door, but wouldn’t open it yet. She was right, she always was, and he knew that at least.

 

A reckless plan it had been and yet here he sat with John in 221b in a quiet and contemplative silence. The air lighter than it had been in months. Clean veins, but disheveled mind.  He closed all the doors and yet the sounds invade. Perhaps today he cannot ignore them.

 

John shifted and looked at his phone, “Ah, time to pick up Rosie.” With it said he stood, waiting for Sherlock’s response.

 

“Yes…” Sherlock murmured looking out into the room absently but adjusted quickly sitting up in his chair. “Yes. I’ll call you if any cases come up.”

 

“You ok, Sherlock?”

 

Sherlock looked up to see his friend’s typical look of concern.

 

“Always,” Sherlock half grinned.

 

John scrunched his face, asking the question they all ask too often.

 

“Not feeling like…?”

 

“No John, I know I have reached my limit with those experimentations.,” Sherlock sighed.  “No, quite well. Just need to do some tidying up in my mind. Shuffle some things around.”

 

“Ah, well.  I’ll leave you to it then.” he moved toward the door but paused as he grabbed his coat and turned, “Call me, I mean it, if you need me.”

 

“Will do. Good day give Rosie my love,” Sherlock said with a wave of his hand as he steepled his fingers as the door closed.

 

He could have asked John. But what good would it do to bring someone else in something that felt invasive and private. He continually pushed the narrative of The Woman and to throw Molly under the same scrutiny felt cruel. Those who found love insisting on finding it for others was all John’s aim. A natural human compulsion. Even Mrs Hudson tried it. His brother understood at least of marriage of another kind.

 

In the silence he sat and reached out letting his mind open the door the hall. Her room sat at the end. He saw sunlight creeping around its edges, like it always did. Words jumbled in the air now as he reached for the knob.

 

 _Love_ whispered by his ear and he paused.

 

 _“_ You can run away you know, just blink your eyes and open them wide.”

 

He turned his head to his left in his mind. She looked at the door with him. He studied her. His Molly, wait _no…_

 

“It’s ok, Sherlock. You can call me your Molly. I mean, I am the one in your head so I can’t be anyone else’s.”

 

A grin. He watched it spread as she talked. But her eyes stayed on the door, waiting for him.

 

Why did he have control of her now? He rarely did in his mind, even less outside it. _No..._ that is a lie to himself. He had more control than he ever wished. The power to give and take at will. He pushed that thought away.

 

The words flowed out the room in the beams of light, waiting to be sorted and pieced into a complete thought. Ready to face their meanings, he grabbed the knob, and it turned with ease.

 

Her bedroom. Perhaps the lab at Barts would be more useful. And in the past it was where she roamed in his mind. But time and experience made a new place of dwelling in her place in his life. Her bed looked so comforting he almost gave up the idea of seeking understanding but she was there, tossing papers on the duvet. In that jumper, bright colored stripes with a more sophisticated blouse underneath. The last time he kissed her cheek. The last time he truly appealed for her help and thanked her.

 

He sighed, and she smiled, as if to herself, and then she was gone. A scattering of the words she last said to him when she assumed him at rest displayed before him.

 

And some older ones as well he noted as his fingers shuffled them around. Papers gone yellow with time, wrinkled and some crisp white on fine stationery laid out on a white soft duvet. He stared at the pillows, asking himself when he last slept, in her bed or anywhere except his sofa. But he shook the thought away for the work ahead.

 

**_Never ending it seems when one finds themselves in your circle._ **

 

Loaded words, spoken with a bitterness he selected first.

 

“You can stay there if you want, self loathing ripe for picking, eh?”

 

She stood beside him again that same knowing grin. He frowned and tossed that phrase to the side.

 

“Maybe this one?”

 

He glanced to where she pointed but grabbed another piece and lifted it to read.

 

**_There were a couple others after Tom. Close call with one._ **

 

He wanted to remember a name, but he had deleted it. He scanned the bed to see if she said it if any ivory sheet could provide a clue.

 

“Oh Sherlock, why does it matter his name? I moved on, right?” she huffed as she walked behind him and to the other side of the bed.

 

He looked up and spoke finally to her.

 

"Because he was important I assume. A friend should remember such things," he huffed back tossing the paper down to a discard pile he started.

 

Locked eyes, she whispered with a near pout shaking her head, “Oh we know we aren’t just friends though.”

 

He stared desperately waiting for new words but she disappeared again.

 

He rifled around quickly, pushing papers aside and found the phrase he sought.

 

**_Friends only, right?... But you kissed my cheek and asked me for chips... maybe you loved me then in a way._ **

 

He stared at the words, recalling her sigh as he lay stiff still in fear of her discovering him awake. The last words sounded tight as if she was frowning.

 

And she was right. It was for naught but she was right.

 

He felt the ache of his own humanity upon returning home. And he thanked her for her help. Greedy for her time again, and knowing that ring on her finger sat heavy on her hand already, he asked anyway. Why did he kiss her cheek? Like an apology, he thought, though to be exact it felt selfish like taking a piece of a puzzle he could keep her from completing.

 

“You say terrible things.”

 

She spoke at his side again. Arms folded. He shifted to look into her eyes again. Bright and open and... more real than anything else in the room. He memorized every shade of yellow and coloured strand in the brown and recreated it every time.

 

He gulped as she turned facing him, holding his stare, answering the safe answer, “I know but I said I hoped you were happy. I still do. You deserve it still.”

 

She cocked her head and stepped near enough he had to look down at her.

 

“That pedestal you set me on is your own making, I didn’t ask for it,” she sighed unfolding her arms.

 

“Molly…” he felt his mouth go dry both in his mind and outside it.

 

Her eyes hooded as she looked down at his lips, shifting her form dangerously close “It makes me untouchable, right? Safe?”

 

“Safe,’’ he repeated out loud like a command and she vanished

 

But there were other words, he reminded himself.

 

He tossed crumpled old ones away and pulled the rest of the white unblemished pages into an uneven stack in his hands.

 

Bold on the page the phrase he sought.

 

**_I don’t know if I love you. This is something... sure, but I don’t know anymore what to call this feeling._ **

 

He read the words, running his fingers along lines on the paper. He wanted relief in them. But found only ache.

 

"Something... it’s something for sure."

 

She repeated it, sitting on her side of the bed propped against her headboard.

 

He only glanced at her, throwing that paper in the pile and bringing a new one to block the view of her, reading the words out loud.   

 

“There is ... no... us.”

 

The words tripped on his tongue, spilling out slow.

 

It all added up to a loss. He found the final straws, and he is desperate. Did he lose something deeper than he expected? That he pushed so hard she lost all hope.

 

"There’s the loathing again… but maybe I’ll allow it," she laughed as she disappeared again.

 

His frustration turned in on him and he lashed out in his mind, grabbing the edge of the duvet and tugged it violently off. Papers and words fluttering in the air falling like leaves as he flopped onto the bed in weariness in spirit.

 

“It’s not that I didn’t love you, it’s that I loved you at the wrong time,” she whispered in his ear as he fell drowning in sheets wrapping around him despairingly.

 

And when he woke in his chair to a dark room, and stiff neck, he ignored the ache in his chest and salt crusted at the edges of his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to mouse9 for telling me how awful I am being(while also loving the angst)
> 
> Thanks to Writingwife for the original prompt.
> 
> Lyrics once again from Billie Eilish's "When the Party's Over" (sense a theme here?)


End file.
